Bacanora marks changes at the top as it advances Sonora project

Dual-listed Bacanora Minerals Ltd (LON:BCN, CVE:BCN) on Thursday unveiled a raft of board changes as it advances the Sonora project in Mexico into a world class lithium carbonate mine and revealed a supply deal struck with Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) had fallen through.

Director Mark Hohnen becomes chairman with immediate effect, while James Leahy, interim chair, will resume his role as a non-exec director.

Engineer Ray Hodgkinson has been hired as a Canadian based non-exec director, replacing Shane Shircliff who has stepped down to pursue other business interests.

In addition, REM and Bacanora today said a lithium hydroxide supply agreement announced last August with electric car giant Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) had fallen through.

The financing condition outline had not been met, said the pair and that “we have had extensive discussions with the customer as to the feasiblity of securing project specific financing pursuant to the terms and conditions of the agreement, that those discussions have now concluded, and therefore we are discontinuing further efforts to secure project specific financing pursuant to the agreement.”

The supply deal had had an initial five year term starting from the first order by Tesla, with an option to extend for a further five years.

“It remains Bacanora’s strategy to focus on the production of lithium carbonate to service the rapidly growing Asian and European markets for electric vehicles and energy storage. Sales of lithium carbonate represent some 75% of the current world market of lithium products,” Bacanora repeated today.

It added it continues to focus on its core business – completing the Sonora lithium carbonate feasibility study, which is targeted for completion at the end of the end of the first quarter, 2017, along with furthering discussions with potential lithium carbonate customers.

Bacanora shares dropped almost 7% in early deals to 75p each. REM’s dropped 7.27% to 0.51p.